THE MISSION OF THIS JOURNAL

News sources that are able to keep you awoke to the vital issues of our times must be unfettered by censorship and selfish Interests. “Awake I" has no fetters. It recognizes facts, faces facts, is free to publish facts. It is not bound by political ambitions or obligations; it is unhampered by advertisers whose toes must not be trodden on; it is unprejudiced by traditional creeds. This journal keeps itself free that it may speak freely to you. But it does not abuse its freedom. It maintains integrity to truth.

“Awake!” uses the regular news channels, but is not dependent on them. Its own correspondents are on all continents, in scores of nations. From the four comers of the earth their uncensored, on-the'scenes reports come to you through these columns. This journal’s viewpoint is not narrow, but is international. It is read in many nations, in many languages, by persons of all ages. Through its pages many fields of knowledge pass in review—government, commerce, religion, history, geography, science, social conditions, natural wonders—-why, its cover* age is as broad as the earth and as high as the heavens,

“Awake I” pledges itself to righteous principles, to exposing hidden foes and subtle dangers, to championing freedom for all, to comforting mourners and strengthening those disheartened by the failures of a delinquent world, reflecting sure hope for the establishment of a righteous New World.

Get acquainted with “Awake!" Keep awake by reading “Awake!”

Published Sbmimonthlt Bi WATCHTOWER BIBLE AND TRACT SOCIETY, INC.

117 Adams Street                                 Brooklyn 1, N. Y., U. S. A.

N. H. Knorr, President                             Grant SuitbB, Secretary

Printing this issue; 1,300,000

Entered u second-clw« matter al Brooklyn, N. Y Act of March 3, 1879. Printed in U S A.

CONTENTS

Do You Think?

Flee Corruption to Survive

Glass Enters the Home

Telephone Service de Luxe

Uruguay Goes to the Polls

The Gambling Craze

The Balance in Nature

Tarantulas as They Really Are

New Zealand Re-elects Its National

Party Government

Overcoming the Tobacco Habit

¹ The Hoax of the Schoolboy School Owner

New Word for Toll of Modern War 24 "Your Word Is Truth”

The Sacredness of Human Life

Blueprint for Delinquency

Jehovah’s Witnesses Preach in All the Earth—Southern Rhodesia

Do You Know?

Watching the World

DO YOU

THS world is proud of its wisdom.

Ours is an intellectual age. Logic and scientific reasoning abound. Even so, many people still do not think. They let others think for them—and often even those others do not think. An example is the way man’s fancied wisdom sometimes attempts to discredit the Bible. Higher criticism doubts the Bible’s accuracy. Modernists doubt its authority. Sometimes their views may lead other men into doubting that book’s reliability and timeliness for today.

But this magazine supports the Bible. It is designed for people who want to think. More people should think today. Almost everyone imagines he does. But do you? Has the flood of modem magazines that entertain rather than inform ruined your capacity for thought? Have television programs and the resulting loss of intelligent conversation and discussion added to this lack of thought? Are your ideas dictated by someone who said: “Now this is right,” only to be changed when somebody else says: “No, this is”? Do you know the reasons for your convictions? Can you analyze and determine answers?

The difference between right action and wrong action is thought. What you think directs what you do. Do your thoughts lead you in the right way, or the wrong? How do you know which way is right and which is wrong? Do you know the proofs of your belief, of your religion? Or do you

THINK?

believe it just because your parents did or because some dear friend told you that this one or that one is right? Have you thought about it yourself and weighed the evidence and come to a sound conclusion based on fact?

A man who never uses his body to do a hard day’s work finds it a tiring and difficult thing to do, while the man who digs ditches or loads freight cars or wrecks buildings has little difficulty in putting forth an added bit of exertion. The brain is like the body in this respect. The more you use it, the easier it is to use. But do you find an extra bit of mental exertion extremely difficult and tiring? Then, perhaps, you are out of the habit of thinking. It is not so hard to get out of that habit as you might imagine. Even in this age a vast multitude of persons do not think —they merely imagine that they do.

Some people are too lazy to work; many are too lazy to think. Some people have not done enough work to know how; many have not done enough thinking to be proficient at it. They are in a rut that requires little thought, no imagination. They never examine, never investigate, rarely progress in wisdom and knowledge. Do not be too lazy to think.

Straight thinking does not come naturally for most of us. It has to be learned. Making a sound decision may be the hardest work we are called upon to do.

Constructive thinking is more than daydreaming or the weaving of fantasies. We must weigh the various aspects of a situation. We may read material that provokes thought, and analyze it as we do, then base decisions upon facts that we have read. But what do you get out of what you read? Do you skim lightly over the page, getting merely a smattering of what is there? Or in reading is your mind active? Does it think about what is read, making certain that it got the correct idea from the page, and considering how this applies and what it means to you? Correct understanding is vital. How could you add to intelligent conversation if your information is faulty? How could you reach sound conclusions if in reading you misread the facts upon which your conclusion is based?

It has been said that while man's brain power grows rapidly during the first ten years of his life, it then steadily loses momentum, and that by the time many people are 20, growth in brain power has stopped. This is not true of people who keep studying, reading and thinking, but probably it is true with the majority of persons who do not continue to expand. A person can get along from day to day without doing a great deal of active thinking, but to form higher habits or to gain better skills, or to test your convictions for accuracy, thinking cannot be dispensed with. As Donald A. Laird said in his book Increasing Personal Efficiency: "Earthworms and idiots find it easy to live without active thinking. So do too many others." Obviously we do not wish to be in such a class.

If you see yourself in the bad picture of passive thinkers rather than in the good picture of active thinkers, do not be depressed; just do something about it. To build up your physical muscles you must eat and exercise. To grow strong in thinking, fill your mind with food for thought —provocative truths. Keep your mind active on them. Consider them. Talk about them. Explain them. Exercise your mental capacities, using that food for thought, just as an athlete uses food and exercise to develop his physical muscles.

Too many people have let the drugs of modern living dull their minds. They have let others think for them. They follow the crowd because, though what everyone else says may not be right, following them is easier than thinking for oneself. Perhaps they follow the family, thinking that whatever their parents or their close relatives said can be accepted without investigation. Thus their own power of thinking has taken a holiday.

Like a child who has not learned to walk, all too many people cannot stand on their own mental legs and walk satisfactorily through the maze of conflicting claims and ideas that are set before us today. But the child can learn to walk; a man can build his physical muscles through use; and likewise we can develop our mental strength, learning to weigh facts, to analyze, to determine and to put to accurate use the intelligent conclusions we reach.

One such conclusion has to do with the Bible itself. Those who scoff at that book are not using sound wisdom, true logic or an intelligent appraisal of the facts. They have ignored the evidence of archaeology and history that (despite modern critics’ claims to the contrary) prove the Bible account accurate. They have ignored the Bible’s harmony, its frankness, its high moral principles, and, above all, its reliable and detailed prophecies that show that this book is far beyond the power of any man or group of men to produce. The wise, the intellectual, the logical, the truly scientific approach proves this book’s authority. But too many people have never given it a thought. Have you?

FLEE

TIIS world must go. But there is no reason why you should go with it. No sane person wishes for disaster, but wishful thinking will not avert the disaster coming upon this world. It is Jehovah’s judgment

What is to become of this world? What is to become of its religion, art, enlightenment, the culture of its civilization? What is to become of man? This article answers.

that this world come to an end; that judgment is final. He is God. He changes not. —Malachi 3:6.

People who believe that “all is well,” or who contend that “in the end all will turn out all right,” are indulging in the same sad illusions that deceived the inhabitants of the preflood world. It is the same truthless delusion that beguiled the Egyptian, Assyrian, Babylonian, Greek and Roman empires to their ultimate annihilation. These are choosing to live in a world of pleasant fantasy. They are seeking to escape from the grim reality of our times. They refuse to face the fact that this world is through, that its time is up and that it is on its way out. They intend to hang on to it, rejecting all thought that such association now can only spell certain disaster with it. So they deliberately choose to dupe themselves and others by their false reasonings.

But, on the other hand, there are those who refuse to run away. These prefer to face reality. These see this world for what it is: corrupt, immoral, degenerate, dying. They know that it is on its way out. They want ise, wherein “righteousness is to dwell.” In faith and hope they have dissociated themselves from this old world. Their Leader said of them: “They are no part of the world just as [I am] no part of the world." They have no part in old-world pursuits and activities that are dictated by the lust of appetite, the greed for gain, the passion for power, the thrill of physical combat, and the thirst for violence. They are a people separate and distinct from this old world. They have, as it were, escaped from the old to the new world by their faithful adherence to God’s Word.—2 Peter 3:13; John 17:16, New World Trans.

Reap What JFe Sow

These who practice “the New World religion,” that is, true Christianity, do not name of God and Ghrist this gesture will in itself spare them from the rod of God. Far be this from truth. Did God spare Israel, his people, when they turned unfaithful? Did he let Jerusalem go unpunished for her iniquities? Will Christendom and heathendom go unpunished for their sins? Christendom stands more reprehensible and abominable in the sight of God, for she claims to be God’s servant, but her acts belie her claims. Her history has been an almost unvarying record of confusion, contention, militaristic rivalry and recurring war. Her lust has been shameless and her power merciless. Her public affairs have been directed by conspiracies. Deceit has been her choice, exploitation and plunder her goal of action, injustice her rule of state. It is impossible to define her history in terms of righteousness.

Christendom’s religion has been mere tradition; her worship, a mockery; her professions of justice, hypocrisy. The majority of her people have no practice of religion; and those who go to church and listen^ to prayers and sing hymns addressed to God have only the vaguest idea of what is meant by God, or knowing God, or living the life of God as exemplified in the life of Jesus Christ his Son. She has plundered her own peoples. Can she flout the laws of God with such impunity and not .be punished? Can she seek her own lustfulness and greed and not in the end lose everything? Can she practice violence and hate against her neighbor and not bring upon herself as well as her neighbor a common ruin? God himself gives answers to these questions. “Do not be misled: God is not one to be mocked. For whatever a man is sowing, this he will also reap; because he who is sowing with a view to his flesh will reap corruption from his flesh,”—Galatians 6:7, 8, New World Trans.

The Twilight of Harvest

After sixteen centuries of sowing of sexy, conscienceless, filthy seed, Christendom stands now at the threshold ready to reap the grand harvest. She has scoffed at the Book of books, the Bible, and acclaimed the dirty, obscene trash as “the best of the season.” Every avenue to the human mind she has cluttered with sex. Everything from automobiles to dainties she advertises against a background of a woman’s leg. She has gone all-out to promote sexy thinking and living. Her churches have been converted into recreation centers and gambling dens. Instead of devoting herself to creative, practical, peaceful pursuits, she has fallen into neglect and ease. Bit by bit she has allowed the fibers of honesty and decency to crumble to ruin. Everywhere within her realm life has become an exhausting struggle. There are signs of her slipping and sliding into a major, moral collapse. As she has built, so shall she be torn down. As she has sown corruption, so shall she reap corruption.

Christendom expresses surprise and amazement at her harvest of corruption, crime, immorality and delinquency. What she failed to give her children was an appreciation of God, his Word and their relationship to him. She failed to sow those values which mean more than all the material possessions in the world.

She says movies and television educate. So they do. They are educating the new generation to become irresponsible citizens at a very tender age. Writes a concerned mother: “With the exception of a very few, all children’s shows on the current TV programs seem to be composed of nothing but gangsters, tough cowboys, blustering, blood and thunder pictures which give every child from Maine to Louisiana the idea that it is right and honorable and pure heroism to shoot and kill in cold blood. At the tender age of four years, my daughter has a well-established idea that it is nice to shoot people.”

Now has come the hour for that terrible awakening, when Christendom must reap what she has sown. "Is it not true,” asks Monsignor Thomas J. Quigley, “that most Americans consider divorce legitimate? ... Do they not think it is smart to cheat the insurance company, beat traffic tickets, drink heavily, play around with another one’s husband or wife? Isn’t 'getting away with it’ the pragmatic norm which governs their decisions? Have we not become a people who worship the ‘body beautiful?’ Have not our whole entertainment and athletic program, our popular songs and dances, made us a sex-mad, pleasure-mad people? Are we not dedicated to getting the most we can of wealth, honor, sensible pleasure, and excitement out of the physical world, out of the worship of the body? Are we not a delinquent people in terms of Christian faith and tradition? If we are, then both juvenile and parental delinquency tire mere partial manifestations of our general decay as a Christian nation.”

Decay? Yes, exactly. Christendom has sown corruption, now the unchanging law of God is that she reap corruption. If she is weak, her societies corrupt and degenerate, her social systems unadaptable, the fault is not God's, but her own. She chose to have it so—so shall it be. One of her own clerics declares: “Ought we not to ask, however, in what significant or realistic sense can we apply the name ‘Christian’ to ourselves or to our national life? ... Is the moral tone of the nation—its politics, its business life, its literature, its theatre, its movies, its radio networks, its television stations—Christian?” This twentiethcentury world is openly immoral in its politics, business dealings, human relations and sex standards. A leading American statesman stated; “The decline of integrity in public life has brought us into the twilight of honor.”

Just recently Britain’s Lord Samuel, a liberal leader, was wildly cheered by the peers when he delivered a grave warning about crime and immorality. Lord Samuel said: “Violent crime also has greatly increased, and we read in the newspapers everyday of cruel and ruthless murders such as are, in the age of education and enlightenment, a disgrace to us all. There is no question,” said he, “but that sexual laxity is much more than it has been in earlier generations. Marriages are continually breaking up. Separations are frequent. We find in literature, in the drama, in life, that adultery is regarded as a jest and divorce a mere unimportant incident. . . . Now, last of all, we find to our dismay that the vices of Sodom and Gomorrah —the Cities of the Plain—appear to be rife among us. If they spread and if they become common, then retribution will not be found in earthquake and conflagration, but in something much more deadly and insidious—the poisoning of the moral sense.”

Turn in whatever direction you please, and read the signs that spell a moral breakdown. In Paris before the war it was estimated that there were 20,000 prostitutes, while in 1949 the guesses seemed to average about 100,000. A German survey similar to the U. S. Kinsey report said that “eighty-nine per cent of the men and seventy per cent of the women had sexual relations before marriage.” In America various reports assert that over seventy-three per cent of American males have premarital intercourse by the time they are twenty. As for divorce, one authority states that “in many circles the partner who refused to give the other his or her ‘freedom’ is regarded as somewhat churlish and unchivalrous.” This authority lists the increase in divorce since those pre-WorldWar-I years for England and Wales as 3,867 per cent; for Scotland, 691 per cent; for New Zealand, 489 per cent; for the United States, 221 per cent; and Japan, for which the figures were incomplete, it being the only “pagan” country involved, was the only land with less divorce, and there the decrease was 7 per cent.

While Christendom chants the Ten Commandments: ‘Thou shalt have no other gods before me,’ she is filled to overflowing with false gods; ‘thou shalt not kill,’ yet within her boundaries have originated the greatest and most vicious of all wars, with wholesale killing and murder; 'thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself,’ still she engages in hate campaigns and cold wars; ‘thou shalt not commit adultery,’ she is filled with adulterers and adulteresses; ‘thou shalt not steal,’ crime and delinquency have reached new peaks. J. Edgar Hoover, the director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation in the United States, warned that d major crime is committed every 13.8 seconds, that in the first six months of 1954 over 1,136,140 major crimes took place. Reports show that youngsters are going in for big-time crime, that these are quicker than adult criminals to kill. Everywhere you turn are the same ominous signs of decay.

What to Expect in the Near Future

Not all is well in Christendom. She is sick to death and there is none to save her. She must go, and so must this old world. How well the prophet describes this hour before her complete fall: “She has fallen! Babylon the great has fallen, and she has become a dwelling-place of demons and a lurking-place of every unclean exhalation and a lurking-place of every unclean and hated bird!” Like a writhing patient in the clutches of a fatal disease is this old world. All its life it went on its arrogant way, indulged in every passion, satisfied every lust, violated wantonly every law of health and God. Now the irresistible laws of God are at work. It must reap what it has sown.—Revelation 18:2, New World Trans.

But you do not have to die with this old world. Paul said: “He whp is sowing with a view to the spirit will reap everlasting life from the spirit.” “Sowing with a view to the spirit” means giving heed to the great Spirit, Jehovah God. His immediate command is: "Get out of her [this satanic system of things], my people, if you do not want to share with her in her sins, and if you do not want to receive part of her plagues. . . . she will be completely burned with fire, because Jehovah God who judged her is strong.” Get out by severing all connections with its prevailing political and social life; by steering clear of its passions, ambitions and pastimes. Paul advises: “Quit being fashioned after this system of things, but be transformed by making your mind over, that you may prove to yourselves the good and acceptable and complete will of God.”—Galatians 6:7-9; Revelation 18:4-8; Romans 12:2, New World Trans.

You can best do this by filling your mind with God’s Word, which tells of a new world wherein righteousness is to dwell. A nucleus of that new world is now in the earth represented in the New World society. Associate yourself with it as do all of Jehovah’s witnesses, and escape this world’s end to enjoy life unending in a paradise new earth.—2 Peter 3:13.

WHAT would our houses be without windows, our bedrooms without mirrors, and our vanity pressers without frangible cosmetic containers? What would our kitchens be without the glass tumbler, the glass coffeemaker, the glass casserole, saucepan and dinnerware? What would our living rooms be without the glass lamp shade, without a radio, phonograph or television? our basements without canned fruit? our attics without a framed glass picture of grandfather or an old chandelier? For one thing, our homes would be dark; our bedrooms, unattractive; our kitchens, less inviting; our living rooms not so appealing or so relaxing. Certainly much of the fragile beauty that engraces our homes and makes them more livable we owe to that versatile material—glass.

Step inside an ultramodern living room and what is it that first attracts your attention? Is it not the large picture window that invites the garden beauty of the outdoors right inside? These glass windows are made to withstand rain, snow, sleet, the heat of summer and the cold of winter for generations. They let light through, as much as eighty per cent of it, and at the same time absorb about forty-five per cent of the heat.

Step out of the living room for a moment and call to mind the various conceivable types of glassware with which almost every modern home is equipped—their number is staggering. There are glass candlesticks, glass shades, glass chandeliers, dessert bowls, sugar bowls, butter coolers, drinking glasses and water jugs, quart and pint decanters of all descriptions, as well as numerous other items for household use, such as vases, inkstands, wafer boxes, dishes, door handles, shutter knobs, mirrors and many kinds of ornaments of glass. There are glasses to cook on, glasses to cook in, glass dishes for the food, and glass knives, forks and spoons to eat it with. There are glass beds and glass blankets, glass freezers, friers and driers. No wonder we find it difficult to imagine a house without glass.

The First Windows

Yet in Cicero’s time, who died in 43 B.C., glass objects of any kind were rarities, and glass windows were unknown. There were no windows at all in Greek houses. The rooms were lighted only when the one door which opened onto an inner courtyard was uncovered. In ancient times superstitious people believed sunlight to be a spirit god. They tried capturing it by

trying to chase it into their homes and by quickly shutting the door so that it would not escape. The first windows, even though they were nothing but narrow slits in the wall, were hailed as marvelous innovations. During the Roman era and for hundreds of years thereafter, animal skins or woven material was used as windowpanes. Sometimes the well-to-do Romans used bits of horn or shell or mica instead of cloth, or very thin sheets of alabaster, to cover their windows.

As late as the fourteenth century Richard II issued a writ to search all England to find glass to repair the windows in just one castle. Near the close of the seventeenth century in all the great towns of Italy, with perhaps the exception of Genoa, paper or skins of animals were used as windowpanes. Early American homes had few or no windows. In 1684 Colonel William Byrd of Virginia was forced to send to England to get glass panes for his new home. Those glass windows were a rare sight in America. In the sixteenth century a man who owned glass windows took them with him if he moved to a new home, and he entered them in his will as precious possessions to be handed down to his chosen heir.

Discovered by Accident

Strange, is it not, that this fabulous material should have been discovered quite by accident? The historian Pliny tells us that a group of Phoenician sailors anchored ship along a Syrian river. Going ashore to prepare a meal, they took with them lumps of natron to support their pots, because there were no suitable rocks on the sandy beach. (Natron is a crude kind of soda, which sailors used as a cleanser in those days.) The campfire blazed hot. When it came time to return to their ship, they noticed among the cooling campfire ashes strings of shiny brittle substances. The amazing material came to be called by the world glass; However, authorities doubt Pliny’s story because, say they, it takes 1200 degrees Fahrenheit to fuse glass. And if that beach fire fused glass, then, according to these authorities, “it was the hottest open campfire on record!” Despite the apocryphal nature of the story, one reason some accept it is that soda, sand and fuel make glass and that these were plentiful along the coast of Phoenicia.

However, long before man learned to make glass, nature was forming her own. A flash of lightning into a sand dune will turn the sand into a long, slender tube of glass, measuring up to a half inch in diameter and sometimes several feet in length. In Uruguay, along a stretch of sandy dunes, there are glass rods of this type that reach a depth of many yards into sand. In some sections the wind has blown away the sand leaving a glimmering forest of crystal trees!

Volcanic action, too, is a glassmaker. Volcanic glass is called obsidian. Egyptian and Roman craftsmen decorated their homes with objects made of obsidian. They shaped this impure semitransparent material into bowls, plates, jars, arrowheads and jewelry. Wealthy ladies had vanity cases and compacts made of decorated glass. Small glass rods were used for applying the make-up. Beads were used as charms. Archaeologists declare that the best glass of Egypt is dug from the most ancient sites.

In course of time men became highly skilled at the art of glassmaking, using both obsidian and sand-made glass. The Greeks laid floors of glass mosaic and patterned their walls with murals “painted” in small pieces of glass. The Roman glass was so magnificently decorated that the wealthiest Romans cherished it as they did their gold and silver jewelry ware. Imitation emeralds, rubies and other precious

gems were so perfectly copied in glass that only an expert could distinguish the genuine stones from the false ones. The deception was so complete that even the wife of Roman emperor Gallienus bought a set of jewels that later proved to be made of glass.

Down through the ages glass has never lost its appeal. It has had as its admirers and collectors Egyptian Pharaohs, Chinese emperors, Roman Caesars, kings, princes and popes. Royalty and nobility closely followed the art of its making. Nero, Adrian, and his successors down to Gallienus, all practiced the profession. Nero’s taste for glass vessels was extreme. He preferred them to delicate vessels of gold and silver. There is an account of the payment by Nero of a sum equal to $100,000 for two glass cups with handles!

Even though some of these notable men were master craftsmen at the art of glassmaking, able to create elaborate storytelling windows with brilliant illustrations of religious and Biblical themes, still none of them could make the plain, colorless, transparent windowpane through which we view our modem world. Their “colorless” glass was more translucent than transparent.

Perhaps nothing made of glass is more popular than the mirror. First, mirrors were made of polished metal or dark stone. A man whose mirror was stolen or broken felt that he himself had been injured. In some societies the deliberate destruction of a man’s mirror was a crime equivalent to murder and punished with equal severity. However, even the best metal mirrors reflected rather dimly. The apostle Paul remarked: “For at present we see in hazy outline by means of a metal mirror.” (1 Corinthians 13:12, New World Trans.) When the Venetians learned how to eoat one side of glass into a far better and clearer reflecting surface, their mirrors became instantly popular. Marie de Medici, queen of France, spent hundreds of thousands of francs for a single Venetian mirror!

Air Bubble Makes a World of Difference

Despite the abundance of sand and the simplicity with which glass can be made, It still remained out of reach of the common man until the twentieth century. More progress has been made in this century than in all the others combined. But one of the greatest contributing factors to this success was discovered by the Phoenicians between 300 and 20 B.C., and that is the technique of blowing an air bubble in molten glass. This strikingly simple thing required men thousands of years to learn. The technique requires that a long hollow iron rod be placed in molten glass and a blob or “gather” of glass adhering to the rod be lifted out and then shaped slightly by rolling it on a flat surface. Next, a gentle puff of air into the other end of the rod forms a small bubble in the middle of the gather. The more one blows the larger the bubble becomes, like a spherical balloon its walls thin as it grows larger. As soon as the bubble has reached the desired size, let it cool and harden. The rod is then pulled away or the glass sheared while it is still warm and viscous. The opening left by the rod can be enlarged, so that the round bubble becomes a vase or a widemouthed bowl.

Today, machines blow and mold the hot glass. The blowing is done with compressed air. Hand-blowing a half a billion milk bottles and nearly three billion bottles for medicines and toilet preparations, and some billions more for soft-drink bottles —not to mention the hundreds of millions more for beer, fruit juices, liquors and other beverages—would require a tremendous staff of human glass blowers’. This is all capably handled today by the lungs of a mechanical marvel,

New Glass Era Begins

Remember when you did not dare put a baby’s bottle into boiling water without first heating it? Baby’s bottles today can be taken directly out of the refrigerator and put into boiling water without losing a bottle. In fact, laboratory men lay fine sheets of this tempered glass on blocks of ice, wait till it is cold, then pour molten metal over it without cracking the glass. Tumblers and plates made of this superglass can be tossed on the floor by junior without danger of their chipping or breaking.

On the new glass ironing board tha housewife can press her glass frock. The material will not burn, and a hot flatiron, left on it while she answers a telephone call, will not even leave a scorch mark. Window and door drapes, luxurious sofas and chairs, pillows and blankets are also made of this fireproof, fiberglass fabric. The amazing material will not stain and it defies acids.

Bathrooms and kitchens are made brighter and lighter with structural glass. It resembles the finest marble. It is easy to clean and cheaper, lighter and easier to install.

At the dinner table the modem housewife brings meat, vegetables and desserts to her table in the same handsome glassware in which they were cooked. Glass casseroles reveal their contents to the cook’s watchful eye. Hot glass is used to dry clothes, cook breakfast or warm a house. In a small suburban home a new type of insulating glass saves as much as twenty-three to thirty-six per cent of fuel costs. One firm demonstrated the versatility of glass by placing a quart of ice cream wrapped in glass wool and an unbaked cherry pie side by side in a hot oven; also a pot of hot coffee wrapped in glass wool was set in a refrigerator. When removed, the pie was baked, the ice cream still hard, the coffee still steaming.

Glass is so reasonably priced today that almost every housewife can afford a set of cleverly designed pieces with crystal clarity and the delicacy of decoration on which craftsmen once labored long hours to produce and for which kings once willingly bartered gold and precious jewels. What other material is like modem glass? It defies corrosion, swallows heat, lets in more ultraviolet light, permits indoor sun tan, and at the same time graces the home with its glimmering, crystal beauty.

Thanks be to God for this wonderful gift made from grains of sand—an abundance of which he has created for our pleasure and enjoyment.

(huguzHj goes TO THE FWfo

By "Awok*!" corratpondent in Uruguay

HAT would you think about an election in which a single vote is cast in favor of more than 600 candidates? Unusual? Would you not think it stranger still upon learning that you were voting for nine presidents instead of one? Well, that is the situation that confronted the 831,577 of the 1,295,522 registered voters in Uruguay who went to the polls on Sunday, November 28, 1954. Let us have a look at some of the interesting features of the election system in this the smallest and probably most democratic republic of South America.

Uruguay has not always had nine “presidents,” or counselors as they are properly called. In 1951 the Constitution was amended to make way for the Colegiado, this present form of rule in which the power of one president is vested in nine men. Actually, it is the realization of the ideals of one of the earlier figures in Uruguayan politics of this century, Jose Batlie y Ordonez, who, during his life, fought for this arrangement based largely on the example of Switzerland, Though the cost of operating such a government is naturally higher than in the case of a single president, the arguments are put forth that it guarantees that the members will be more honest and that it eliminates the danger of one man’s taking. dictatorial powers into his hands—a thing very common in South American countries. In spite of these arguments, however, some have openly stated their intention to return to the former system if elected to power.

As there are no primary elections in Uruguay, the votes cast on election day decide who will be the 9 counselors, 31 senators, 99 representatives, 9 members of the Electoral Court, as well as the members of the Council and municipal boards of the 19 departments of the country. Additionally, there are two, and in some cases three, alternative names given for all candidates named above. These are elected as supplementary members to serve in cases of resignations, sickness, death, etc. Now you see why it is that the lists published contain more than 600 candidates.

The two principal parties are the Parti-do Colorado (Red party, but not Communist) the majority of which party belong to the section called Batllismo, a name derived from their leader Jose Batlie y Ordonez, and the Partido Nacional (National party), formerly called the Partido Blanco (White party). These two colors are those used originally as emblems of the parties during the civil wars. Today these parties are divided into various factions. Each faction participates in the elections under the general motto of the party, but uses a subslogan that may be the same as or different from that of the other factions. This is true even when the list of candidates of the faction, with its own distinguishing number, is different from those of the other factions of the party. Generally the lists support the same candidates for the most important offices, such as counselors and senators, with variations in the names of candidates for the municipal offices and House of Representatives. One cannot choose some candidates from one list and others from a different list, but must decide upon one list that most suits his desires as far as all candidates for all offices are concerned. This list, published before the election, is put into an envelope and dropped into the ballot box on election day.

You have probably asked: “Why, though, would different factions of the same party run under the same slogan?” That brings up another interesting point about the election system here in Uruguay. When the votes are counted, the votes received by all factions of the party are added to those received by the list with the highest number. In this way, although divided, the factions keep themselves united in their fight against the opposing parties. The victorious faction has the right to six seats in the Council as representatives of the party. The other three seats are occupied by the party that follows the winner in number of votes.

On the basis of the results of the present election Luis Battle Berres, who heads List 15 of the Partida Colorado, together with the other five members of his faction, will occupy the majority of the seats on the Council during the period 1955-59. The three remaining seats will be occupied by members of the Partido Naciondl. The rest of the positions in the Senate, House of Representatives, and the departmental councils and municipal boards will be distributed proportionately according to votes received by Color ados and Nacioiw-listas, as well as members of the Communist, Socialist, Union Civica (Catholic), Independent National and some other smaller parties.

Though election day came at the end of November, the publicity started some five months earlier. To date nothing like it has been seen in this country. Not even the yearly carnival with its noise, color, parades, floats and overwhelming masses of people could compare with what occurred prior to the decisive date of November 28.

A Publicity Campaign Extraordinary

Hundreds of political clubs scattered throughout all parts of all the cities and towns of the country maintained a constant flow of verbal propaganda through their loud-speakers. Especially in the capital, Montevideo, in the central part, these clubs are so close together at times that when two announcers spoke at the same time it was impossible to understand either one. From morning till night the flow of words continued. Adding to the uproar were the dozens of sound cars that passed through the streets blaring forth more information in favor of their particular party. Enormous floats covered with slogans, signs, pictures of the politicians and the number of their list contributed to the spectacle. From the windows of cars thousands of handbills were thrown to the winds, to be picked up, stepped on or finally swept up by the street cleaners. When one had come to the conclusion that the thunderous confusion of noise would drive him crazy, more noise from above would be heard as low-flying airplanes equipped with loud-speakers would shout forth still more propaganda.

The municipality of Montevideo positively prohibits the putting up of commercial signs or other notices about public events in the streets. But, of course, exception is made for political propaganda. How the politicians took advantage of it! It can be said that the appearance of the city was practically transformed by the tens of thousands of signs that began to appear pasted on trees, telephone and light poles, fences, walls, fronts of buildings whether old or new, inhabited or uninhabited, curbs of the streets, statues and whatever else offered a few square inches of space on which to paste signs. No respect was shown for others as one group of sign pasters placed their signs over those of their opponents. Even before the glue would dry a third group would appear to put their signs over those of the previous two.

This continued day after day until finally neat, dean buildings would remain a distasteful mass of jumbled signs placed at all angles one over another. As election day drew near one could hear the people grumbling because their property was literally smothered in paper signs of all sizes, shapes and colors. Trees and light posts became the bearers of as many as three or four different signs nailed or wired to them, each one in favor of a different party. Enormous electrical signs as well as hundreds made on cloth were suspended overhead from building to building. As many as eight were seen in one city block. As a result of high winds many would tear and would remain hanging in ribbons above a new one placed there by another party. In many of the more important corners the tattered remains of four or five signs presented anything but a pleasant picture. Giant numbers appeared painted on the streets along with the name of the party, to attract the attention of the motorists and pedestrians crossing at the corners.

Nearer the time of election cruzadas throughout the country began with great numbers of cars, trucks and motorcycles moving from city to city and town to town in an effort to rouse the sentiments of the different adherents of each party. Day after day in every part of the city speakers, male and female, orated on the benefits of their party and the failures of the other. If one were to believe all that was said by the contenders for election he would have to come to the conclusion that the entire list of candidates were liars, cheaters, traitors to the country and incapable of representing the people in their government. Almost 100 per cent of the local newsreels in the movies were dedicated to more propaganda, while the newspapers used up to 50, 60 or 70 per cent of the total space in many instances to further the cause of the party that supports them. All in all, it was a display of advertising never before seen or duplicated and it caused amazement on the part of all, especially the many interested observers of the 8th General Assembly of the UNESCO that was assembled in Montevideo at the time. It provided an example of true freedom for those representatives present from dictator-controlled countries.

One point that should not be overlooked in this report is about the source of funds behind such a monstrous campaign. Where, in such a small country, would such an amount come from? Why, from the government! $3,500,000 (pesos) were allotted to be divided proportionately to the different parties on the basis of votes received. Without a doubt it was this fact that contributed largely to the greatly intensified publicity campaign that Uruguayans saw during the pre-election months.

So, Uruguay has made her decision for another four-year period. It is too early yet to say just what the results will be as the new government entered into power on March 1,1955. Only the passing of time will tell whether it is for better or for worse as far as the people of this land are concerned. But, regardless of the course of the politicians of this old world, the ambassadors of the theocracy in Uruguay, Jehovah’s witnesses, will press on firmly in the work of announcing the perfect government of Jehovah God through Christ as the only real remedy for today’s problems.

The Gambling Craze

The Gambling Fever ift America

4 In 1950 Dr. Ernest E. Blanche, a statistician in the logistics division of the United States Army who has made a secondary career out of studying gambling and warning gamblers that they cannot win, estimated that 3,000,000 Americans were playing the horses, 22,000,000 playing dice and cards for money, 14,000,000 playing slot machines and pinball games and 26,000,000 playing bingo, buying lottery tickets and playing the football and baseball pools. The total gambling bill, it has been estimated, is $15,000,000,000 a year. What would these figures be if gambling were not illegal in most localities?

Bingo! Church Take Is Millions

Toward the end of New Jersey’s first year of legalized gambling for churches, the state control commission reported that the churches and civic organizations would gross more than $10,000,000 from bingo. The approximate income from raffles and other gambling games was set at $5,000,000.

< How different are the gambling churches of Christendom from Christ’s apostle who said: "We 'make honest provision, not only in the sight of Jehovah, but also in the sight of men*”!—2 Corinthians 8:21, New World Trans.

Gambling with the Aid of Demons

4 Gambling in various forms has always been a favorite with the demon-worshiping pagans. A report in the Lynn, Massachusetts,

Item of May 28, 1952, told about religious gamblers in Penang, Malaya: "‘Jubilant villagers of Pulau Tikus in Penang celebrated with prayers and a seven-day Chinese drama after winning a total of $66,000 in a lottery from a tip from their temple god. The god, through a temple medium, had advised them to back 54 as the winning number in an illegal lottery in conjunction with a horse race.* On the eve of each race day hundreds of people crowd into temples and cemeteries to ask the aid of the gods and spirits in placing bets.”

A Pointed Comment on Gambling

C “Is it wrong to gamble, bet, or speculate?” asked Durant Drake, then associate professor of ethics at Wesleyan University, in his book Problems of Conduct. His answer was that gambling should be condemned. "Its most obvious evil,” he wrote, “is the danger of loss of needed money; most gamblers cannot rightly afford to throw away what ought to be used for their real needs and those of their families. . , , And he must remember that if he can afford to lose, perhaps his opponent cannot. , . . All betting, all playing games for money, all gambling in stocks is wrong in principle, liable to bring needless unhappiness. The honorable man will hate to take money which has not been fairly earned; he will wish to protect those who are prone to run useless risks against themselves. The safest place to draw the line is on the near side of all gambling, however trivial.¹ ’

The Balance in nature

< If all birds vanished, insects would wipe out the world’s plant food supply. Yet if all insects vanished, half our crops would become extinct. If all animals disappeared, there would be no organic fertilizers to nurture plant life. If all lowly bacteria did not exist, dead organic matter would never decay or rot and would pile up all over, smothering earth. If all fish vanished, seaweed would grow unchecked along all coasts and swamp them in a dense choking entanglement stopping all ships from leaving dock. If all seaweed died, hordes of fish would pass into limbo with it.—Mechanic Illustrated, February, 1954.

dooi; spiders (not all trap-door spiders make trap doors) that have so completely usurped the name "tarantula” that the name has stuck. About thirty species of tarantulas live in the United States, mostly in the Southwest. In the tropics many interesting kinds abound. A few live in trees, moving from one tree to another with the greatest of ease. Even the ground-loving tarantulas are good climbers. In much of Spanish America people just call them, because of their velvety wool and silken hairs, aranas peludas (hairy spiders).

FEW creatures excite more soul-chilling horror than the huge, hairy spider called tarantula. When this' ferocious-looking spider turns up in a banana box or in a house, the usual reception is a shriek of horror. What a commotion follows! The women beat a fast retreat, and the brave and courageous men feverishly advance with sticks and boots to squash “the hideous monster.” Is all this mad dread of tarantulas justified? Is their bite dangerous to man? How large do they grow? Why does this spider have a coat of hair? The answers will tell us the intriguing story of tarantulas as they really are.

Before prying into the private life of Mr. Tarantula, we should know that spiders are not insects; they are members of a separate order of arthropods. So, if you wish, call the tarantula an animal.

Spider families can be put, roughly, into one of five groups: web weavers, jumping spiders, crab spiders, wolf spiders and trap-door spiders. Where does the tarantula fit in? The answer is a little involved, but, briefly, the original tarantula is a European wolf spider. It got its name from the Italian city of Taranto in Apulia, on the outskirts of which it was once very numerous. What, then, are those hairy spiders in the Americas? They are trap-

Site, Hair and Diet

Tarantulas are the biggest spiders on earth. Those in North America may grow to be two inches long with a leg span of six inches. In the steaming jungles of South America, especially Brazil, is found the giant of the tarantula tribe. Called Thera-phosa, it is an enormous creature that has no peers for size anywhere in the world. It grows to be four inches long with a leg span of ten inches—almost a foot of spider!

But why the hair? Here are two clues: tarantulas do not spin a web to capture prey, and they have poor eyesight. Naturally, the spider wants to know what is passing by, especially at mealtime. So the tarhntula Jias an extremely delicate sense of touch. Woe to passers-by! For when a wayfaring insect, plodding along, brushes against the spider’s hair, the tarantula’s dinner bell rings. It is the signal for the fangs of the hungry spider to go into action. And the wayfarer is hit by an express train with an engine of curved fangs. Dinner is served.

On those occasions when the tarantula gets its mind off snatching snacks, a wayfarer can touch its body hairs and merely cause the spider to shake the touched limb. An insect can then walk right under the tarantula's big hairy belly and live to tell about it. Certainly only the most foolhardy

insects try to perform that feat. It is usually fatal. After a hair is touched, the spider's reaction is so swift that motion pictures taken at the rate of sixty-four frames per second show only the result and not the process of capture. Surely tarantulas have the original hair-trigger action!

Besides the marvelous dinner-catching equipment, tarantulas have their own built-in tenderizer, for spiders predigest their food by flooding the wound with secretions to soften tissue so it can be sucked up easily. Having an economy-sized stomach also helps. Thus, with several hours at the dinner table, a tarantula can reduce the bulk of a fat mouse to a juiceless skeleton.

Dangerous to Man?

Because of their ferocious looks, tarantulas are often thought to be deadly poisonous. This is not so. Neither the European nor the United States tarantula is. dangerous to man. The bite of these spiders is now known to be no worse than a hornet’s sting. Indeed, Dr. William J. Baerg of the University of Arkansas has studied tarantulas for many years, and he has concluded that no species from the United States is able to produce anything more than trivial symptoms in man, little more than the mechanical injury of breaking the skin. So these spiders, because they feast on bugs (they find roaches tasty morsels), really merit the friendship of their human neighbors.

Tropical tarantulas, however, compose such a diverse group that they cannot all be labeled harmless without more data on venoms. Tests have shown that many of the tropical varieties, including the giant of them all, have venom that is very nearly ineffective on man. On the other hand, the common tarantula of the Canal Zone and the lowlands of Central America kills guinea pigs in half an hour and causes pain in man that lasts for several hours. But the danger of tarantula bite is remote. Tarantulas do not attack man. One noted authority on spiders, McCook, tried to get big tropical tarantulas to bite him. Strangely, after endless patience lasting over years, he had induced only one spider to bite him.

How long do tarantulas live? Those in America live for about fifteen years. One immigrant to Britain, found in a banana crate, was kept alive in a museum for fourteen years. And when it immigrated it was already about six years old. It would have lived much longer than twenty years had not a fuel shortage during the war caused the temperature to go below freezing. Some tarantulas reach the thirty-year mark.

But for a spiderling to reach a ripe old age is quite an accomplishment. The young are gobbled up by birds, frogs and toads. Some snakes find them quite suitable dietetically. Finally, after ten years of avoiding hungry mouths, the tarantula reaches maturity. At this age the male American tarantula abandons his burrow and begins wandering over the countryside searching for a mate. These roving spiders may be seen crossing highways of the Southwest, often in considerable numbers. Most do not survive the year in which they become mature. Many die a natural death. Others die an unusual death: during the process of courtship and mating the female often fails to get her mind off her stomach, and she sizes up her bridegroom as something edible, and a kind of succulent morsel at that. If, after dinner, she realizes her mistake and suffers regrets, it does not show visibly. But if she should suffer a feeling of regret she has the consolation that she has dined well and that another suitor will be looking her up shortly.

The Wasp and the Spider

Life is not always a picnic for female tarantulas. They have an archenemy in the “tarantula hawk,” a digger wasp called Pepsis. Pepsis drinks nectar herself, but when she is ready to lay an egg she goes tarantula hunting- Pepsis has to find just the right species of tarantula. Flying low over the ground, Pepsis scouts especially for the plump females. Their greater bulk offers a more generous supply of food for the wasp’s offspring. After locating the right tarantula, the wasp proceeds to dig a grave. Now and then Pepsis pops out of the six-to-eight-inch hole to see that the tarantula makes no tracks for home. The grave finished, Pepsis buzzes back to the spider and jockeys into position to sting the tarantula. The spider makes no move to save itself. Finally, the wasp grasps the spider’s leg firmly in its jaws. Now the harassed spider tries to defend itself. It is too late. They roll over and over. But the outcome is always the same. The wasp stings the spider. Almost immediately the hairy spider falls paralyzed on its back. Yet it is not dead. Pepsis then drags its victim to the grave, lays an egg on the spider’s fat abdomen and, with soil carried bit by bit in her jaws, fills the grave, leaving her descendant safely started in life.

The strange thing about all this is that the tarantula is fully capable of defending itself; indeed, it could kill the ?■ wasp. In experiments, digger wasps, when they were not carrying eggs, have been placed in jars with the tarantula they usually kill. The result : the spider invariably kills the wasp-But when Pepsis is about to have children, look out tarantulas! In spite of Pepsis’ attacks there is no danger of the tarantula’s going the way of the dodo. For Pepsis lays only one egg at a time; Mrs. Tarantula lays 200 to 400.

The story of tarantulas would not be complete without this information: tarantulas, at least those in the United States, make fine pets. They quickly become tame, so tame they can be handled with ease. Can you believe it? To convince its readers the New York Times of October 19,1954,- said: “If you feed a tarantula mealworm beetles and are otherwise kind to it, it will make a very good pet. The authority for this is the American Museum of Natural History.”

And one authority has written about seeing Indian children leading about a huge Brazilian tarantula by a string tied to its tangerine-sized waist, much as many city dwell >rs lead about a Pekingese, The tarantula is the smaller animat But since so many people do not know tarantulas as they really are, it seems that the sight of a huge, hairy tarantula creeping down a city street, even though attached to its master by a string, would provoke pandemonium, a howling commotion, onlookers aghast, agog and agone! And all because of a shy, inoffensive spider.

^aiaball and. ’&iapat5

During the last baseball world series the New York Times reported on the easy way, it seems, that baseball wives have for teaching their husbands how to diaper a new baby. The wife lays the breechcloth out in the form of a baseball diamond. "Now," she tells her baseball-playing husband, "you take the batter's position at the low end of the cloth; bring center field down to home plate. You put the .baby in the pitcher’s box. You bring first base, third base and home plate together. If the game’s rained out, you start all over.”

New Zealand Re-elects Its National Party Government

»y “AwokeI" eofT«<pond«nt irt New Zealand

HE Labour party was voted out in New Zealand in 1349, after ruling the country for 14 years. Perhaps the party’s own supporters contributed most to that defeat in that trade unions were too ready to strike if their demands were not met by the employers. The long-suffering public decided it was time for a change and put the National party in power by a substantial majority. Soon the waterside workers clashed with the new government, making demands that the nationals refused to concede. It meant industrial war on the water front and the holdup of shipping at all ports in the country. The victory went to the government, ushering in a new era of peace in industry. Anxious to have the electors endorse their handling of the water-front trouble, the national government resigned and went to the country on this issue. They were returned to office in 1951, with a clear majority of 20 seats in a house of 80 members. C The election campaign just concluded centered around the rising cost of living, and the Labour party’s charge that the government failed to fulfill its promise to make the pound go farther. National's reply was that overseas prices skyrocketed as a result of the Korean war and it was not their fault that their promises were unfulfilled. One of Labour’s prominent candidates admitted their failure to discipline striking unionists when they held the reins of power and promised that, if elected, they would not allow themselves to be pushed around by truculent Industrial unions. Labour relied on promises to make conditions better for the common man, to control the price of food, and to use stabilization as an antidote to inflation. They would allow increased social security benefits, particularly with regard to child allowance. They would deal with selfishness in business, which they claim is responsible for the present high cost of living. The National party sought the support of the electors on the strength of their

past achievements, the continued industrial , peace and the great prosperity of the country, ; which they aver was largely due to their administration.

< Many are inclined to believe the Labour party's contention that the cost of living has been needlessly increased by the greed for excess profits displayed by supporters of the National party, a large part of which Is the commercial community. There is no doubt that the election showed considerable Joss of confidence by the public, and the National party accepts the verdict of the people as a rebuke, which they intend to study closely. It therefore appears that, just as striking trade unionists helped to oust Labour in 1949, So business profiteering has reacted against National in 1954.

<L A newcomer to the political field this year , was the Social Credit party, and although ; they did not win a seat, their polling more । than 11 per cent of the total vote surprised and alarmed the two major parties. Both National and Labour regarded Social Credit as a nuisance, capturing votes that each J would have received, all to no purpose. Social ; [ Credit, elated with its success, - intends to । try again next election. Communists had a [ few candidates but received little more than ; a total of 1,000 votes out of nearly one million I who went to the polls.

! < New Zealand’s somewhat chastened na-| tional government faces another three-year J term of office, with their former majority of I 20 reduced to 6. Thus, the political seesaw in J this and every other country surely demon-| strates the folly of putting one’s confidence ! in human leaders. Real satisfaction, content-! ment and happiness come only to those whose i hopes are centered in Jehovah and his king-I dom. He makes no promises but what he is J able and willing to fulfill abundantly. Happi-J ness under his kingdom is assured, unending j and unmatched by any political utopia con-i ceived by men.

HE WHO is wise appreciates the blessings of health and life. He knows that upon health and life depends not only all the joys associated with file use of his five senses and the satisfying of his basic instincts, but also the greater happiness that comes from doing things for others or from achieving something worthwhile in fields of fruitful endeavor.

However, there is even a greater and more important reason for wisely caring for health and life, in that these are the gifts of a wise and loving Creator, bringing with them accountability to their Giver as to how we make use of them. Therefore, if we know that a certain practice or habit is injurious to our health and may shorten our life we have a threefold obligation, to our Creator, to our fellow man and to ourselves, to break or stop it.

The tobacco habit is a case in point. Some enjoy it so much they refuse to consider the evidence against it. Then there are others who, while admitting they should stop smoking, plead inability to do so. However, they can if they really want to. And there are strong and sufficient reasons why everyone who is addicted to the tobacco habit should want to get free from it.

First of all, there is the matter of expense. In the United States tobacco represents a $5,500,000,000 industry. The average smoker spends about $100 a year on tobacco, not to say anything about the cost of cigarette lighters, ash trays, damage done to clothing by cigarette burns or the many fires started by careless smokers. Though the matter of expense is really the least important argument against the tobacco habit, it is something to be reckoned with.

Of far greater importance is the matter of the effect of the tobacco habit on longevity. According to a Dr. Pearl, who did considerable research regarding this about fifteen years ago, 66 out of 100 nonsmokers of the age of 30 will live to be 60, but only 46 out of 100 heavy smokers will reach that age. One modern researcher states that “the death rates among regular cigarette smokers are about the same as the death rates among nonsmokers who are five years older.”

One of the ways that tobacco shortens life is in the way it affects the heart, especially sick hearts. On the one hand, it steps up the pulse as much as 28 beats a minute and on the other hand it constricts the tiny blood vessels in the extremities up to 50 per cent. It is the most important irritant causing heart disease. Young women are more likely to suffer harm from tobacco in this regard than any others.

Smoking and Cancer

The report of Dr. E. Cuyler Hammond, director of statistical research of the American Cancer Society, showed that

deaths from all causes are 75 per cent higher for heavy smokers than for nonsmokers, deaths from heart disease 95 per cent higher, deaths from all types of cancer 156 per cent higher and deaths from lung cancer 400 per cent higher in heavy smokers than in nonsmokers. The report was released before the research was completed because its evidence was considered so important to the health of the people.

Another researcher, Dr. Wynder, in an address to New York dentists quoted thirteen American and foreign studies to conclude that “the prolonged and heavy use of cigarettes increases up to twenty times the risk of developing cancer of the lung.” And the president of the International Surgical Association and chairman of the board of regents of the American College of Surgeons said in an address to the University of North Carolina: “There can be no possibility of doubt that there is a direct relation between cancer of the lung and cigarette smoking.”

Most outspoken of all is Dr. Alton Ochs-ner, New Orleans surgeon, chief of surgery at TulaneUniversity of Medicine, president of the American Cancer Society, 1949-1950, president of the American College of Surgeons in 1951-1952 and head of the famous Ochsner Clinic in New Orleans. Said he: “If you’ve switched to a filter cigarette to avoid cancer of the lung, you’ve fooled yourself. The only thing filters do is to sell more cigarettes. They don’t remove anything.” According to him the cancer agent is in the tars and not in the nicotine, but nicotine causes heart trouble. “That’s one reason why there aren’t more smokers dying of lung cancer. They die of heart trouble before lung cancer develops.” Regarding himself and his associate, Dr. DeBakey, he says: “We are convinced that smoking, especially cigarette smoking, is so detrimental to the patient with peptic ulcer that he cannot recover as long as he smokes, and we refuse to treat such an individual unless he will totally abstain from smoking.”

In January, 1954, the American Cancer Society reported that chewing of tobacco or snuff had been found to be associated with cancers of the mouth. Mouth cancer, it was found, developed usually after fifteen years of chewing, those chewing less than¹ fifteen years had developed mouth sores and tissue changes the scientists believed might become cancerous if chewing was persisted in. More than 40 million pounds of tobacco are chewed annually in the United States and about four per cent of all deaths from cancer are due to cancer of the mouth, tongue, palate and tonsil.

The most detailed study thus far made in the United States is that by Drs. Wynder and Graham in connection with 760 lungcancer patients. They found only 1.4 per cent of them were nonsmokers. According to them, “The occurrence of carcinoma of the lung in a male nonsmoker or minimal smoker is a rare phenomenon,” Their conclusions were strikingly similar to those of the British physicians Doll and Hill who studied 1,357 lung-cancer patients. The risk of lung cancer for one smoking 25 cigarettes a day, according to them, is 50 times as great as that of the nonsmoker,

Aids to Overcoming the Habit

For Christian ministers there is a still stronger reason for breaking the tobacco habit, and that is its being displeasing to the Creator, Jehovah God. And why should it be displeasing to him? Because of its unclean and enslaving features. Christians are admonished, "Let us cleanse ourselves of every defilement of flesh and spirit.” And they are reminded, “You were, of course, called for freedom, brothers; only do not use this freedom as an inducement for the flesh.”—2 Corinthians 7:1; Galatians 5:13, New World Trans.

Jesus gives good advice for those panting to overcome such bad habits: “Keep on the watch and praying, that you may not enter into temptation. The spirit, of course, is willing, but the flesh is weak.” The apostle Paul does likewise, saying: “Keep walking by spirit and you will carry out no fleshly desire at all.” Regarding himself he wrote: “For all things I have the strength by virtue of him who imparts power to me.” And again: “Every man taking part in a contest exercises self-control in all things. . . . Therefore, the way I am running is not uncertainly; the way I am directing my blows is so as not to be striking the air; but I browbeat my body and lead it as a slave, that, after I have preached to others, I myself should not become disapproved somehow.”—Matthew 26:41; Galatians 5:16; Philippians 4:13; 1 Corinthians 9:25-27, New World Trans,

Interesting in this matter of self-control is what appeared in the Journal of Living magazine, June, 1952, regarding Eisenhower^ stopping smoking cigarettes before he became president. He had been smoking two packs (40) a day, and while there seems to be some question as to whether he stopped of his own accord or on doctor's orders, one of his aides states: “It was purely a question first of deciding that smoking did him no good and, second, of making up his mind to stop. This he did. For [him] as for everyone else, it was a' considerable exercise of will power.”

Says H. Brean, author of How to Stop Smoking: Consider the advantages of stopping, wait for a propitious moment to start and during the early days pamper yourself with gum, mints, etc., and “start the new habit off with all possible momentum, never permit an exception to it until it is firmly fixed (in smoking that can be a long time),”

And telling of his own experience, after many unsuccessful attempts, is syndicate writer Dr. Van Zellen: “I threw my pack of cigarettes against the wall with the determination never to smoke again. The more intense craving persisted for two days before beginning to wane and several months elapsed before it reached zero. But even today, at times of particular stress, the desire returns temporarily. The will to abstain must be pursued relentlessly. To remain on the offensive, the individual must think continuously of the bad effects of smoking and the rewards that follow abstinence.”

Latest, most complete and perhaps most authoritative (as well as most controversial) work on the subject is that of Dr. Ochsner's Smoking and Cancer. Regarding his ten rules for overcoming the tobacco habit, Science News Letter, November 20, 1954, had the following to say:

“1. 'Stop smoking abruptly, completely and permanently.’ Tapering off is harder, leads to relapses which in turn cause feelings of frustration, humiliation and guilt.

“2. ‘Know why you smoke.’ Most reasons smokers give . . . are not sound ones.

“3. 'Build up your resolution/

“4. ‘Burn your bridges to the habit.’ That means throwing away all the ash trays, lighters and so on, as well as the half empty pack of cigarettes, the pipes, holders and cigars.

“5. ‘Time your break/ It may be easier to start your no-smoking future when you have a cold or other illness that lessens your appetite for tobacco, or when you are away from home and your usual smoking companions.

“6. ‘Disregard the brief withdrawal symptoms/ After the first 36 hours you will begin to feel better.

“7. ‘Adopt substitute habits/ Reach for a candy, fruit, drink of water, or take a walk instead of a smoke.

“8. ‘Psychologize yourself/

'*9. 'Count your blessings and proclaim them? The blessings are the better spirits, energy and appetite and lessened coughing and sniffirg.

“10. 'Help others to free themselves.’ Smokers spread their addiction like measles, often unconsciously, but the improved health, and self-discipline of the ex-smoker is catching, too.”

So, in summarizing: While life and health are great blessings that bring with them ever so many opportunities for happiness, they also are trusts committed to us by an omniscient and beneficent Creator. 'Biose who are wise will show their appreciation of health and life by avoiding all habits that constitute a threat to them, such as the tobacco habit. The Christian minister is especially under obligation to overcome it, if addicted to it, because its defiling and enslaving properties are incompatible with the pure worship of the holy God Jehovah. In addition to applying the Scriptural principles to the problem, the foregoing ingenious, practical suggestions will doubtless help. The results of freedom, peace of mind, health, not to say anything of economy, certainly make it worth all the effort required to overcome the tobacco habit.

Authorities at Britain's Forest School, a private school in Snaresbrook, Essex, recently had a problem on their hands. It started when Christopher Youngs, a 15-year-old student, one day walked up to Forest Headmaster Gerald Miller and, without blinking an eye, announced: "Sir, I have just learned that I have inherited a preparatory school from my uncle.’¹ He described it as "Marlborough College at Mill HiU” with 170 pupils and a staff of eleven instructors. Headmaster Miller’s facial expression reflected no undue surprise; Forest rather expected its students to come from families with uncles who might own private schools. "Very good of you to inform me, Youngs ” said Miller. "Congratulations.”

“I think I will be needing some time to go and look at it,” said Christopher. "But I expect my father will be calling you about it.” Soon a gruff voice over the telephone told Miller that Christopher’s father was speaking. The voice bore out the boy’s story. So the boy was granted a day off to look over his newly acquired property. When he got back to Forest at tea time, the whole school was agog. Christopher told his schoolmates how he had addressed the entire school, masters and all; and he told how he had upbraided the headmaster for overworking the boys.

Soon the boy told newspapers. Some London newspapers zestfully ran double-column articles about the oddity of a schoolboy school owner. Meanwhile Headmaster Miller became suspicious. He scrutinized the telephone directory for "Marlborough College”; he looked in vain. He called Christopher in for a "talk,” and the youth admitted his story was a hoax. Why had Christopher done it? "Things have been so frightfully dull around here,” said the boy. But the future looked anything but dull, as his parents promised "a long, long talk” when their erring son returned home. At Forest, authorities pondered on the kind of punishment that would bring to earth a 15-year-old schoolboy’s soaring imagination.

NEW WORD FOR TOLL OF WAR

<1 As if to impress upon our minds th word “meg'a-death” has been coined, publishers, give it this definition.- "A atomic bomb or other large-scale killin rror an atom war would bring, a new nk & Wagnails Company, dictionary indicating 1,000,000 deaths, as from an r or major catastrophes.”

HOW sacred is human life? In these days of war and woe life is about the cheapest commodity on the market. While values of almost every other thing have gone up, the market on human life has shown a decided downward trend. Machines and gadgets are gradually replacing man and he is slowly becoming obsolete in his own society. It is a case of man outsmarting himself. The countless potentialities locked up within him are restrained. A modern society that he has built has confined him to a production line, has turned him into a one-job man. His other talents are restrained. The powers within him to expand, do other things, well up, but these must be confined, resulting in frustration, depression, dissatisfaction. Consequently, the value on really living has decreased markedly.

How sacred is human life? Very. We have only one life. It is precious to us. Without it we cannot enjoy a single blessing. The very fact that it stems from God makes it sacred. Man knows not what life is. He cannot make, create, re-create or resurrect it. He cannot even prolong it beyond a certain point. What the life force is, no man knows. The Bible does enlighten us by saying God “is the fountain of life: in thy light shall we see light.” That means that all life originates with Him. Whether it is spirit or physical life, Jehovah God is its source. No one can have life without His permission. This knowledge should in itself humble one and cause one to draw near to God for his loving-kindness. Since God alone can create and give life, he alone has the right to take it. It is he that determines who shall or shall not live. This is his right, he being the Creator and Life-giver. —Psalm 36:9; Romans 9:21.

What Jehovah God thinks of life is well stated by him in Genesis chapter 9. Here he gives his emphatic declaration concerning the sanctity or sacredness of life. To Noah God declared the divine covenant concerning the shedding of blood. This agreement or covenant is called the ‘rainbow covenant’ or "the covenant of eternity between God and every living soul among all flesh that is upon the earth.” (Genesis 9:16, New World Trans.) In connection with this covenant Jehovah declared that undei’ certain conditions and at certain times human life may be taken in the enforcement of God’s law. At Genesis 9:5, 6, according to the New World Translation, God said: “And, besides that, your blood of your souls shall I ask back. From the hand of every living creature shall I ask it back; and from the hand of man, from the hand of one who is his brother, shall I ask back the soul of man. Anyone shedding man’s blood, by man will his own. blood be shed, for in God’s image he made man.”

This command could not mean that any individual could appoint himself as the executioner of the wrongdoer. At times God designates certain ones or bodies of men to act as his executioner to enforce his judgment against the wrongdoer. The covenant was stated to Noah at the time that Noah was' righteous in the sight of God because of his faith and obedience toward God, and Noah was made God’s executioner of the murderer. This establishes the rule that all execution of wrongdoers must be done in righteousness, that is to say, in harmony with God’s law. (See Exodus 21:12-25; Leviticus 24:16-21.) The law of God designates the offenses for which human life shall be taken in harmony with the terms of God’s covenant. To take human life contrary to God’s appointed way is therefore a violation of the rainbow covenant The Scriptures and the indisputable facts show that today the earth is defiled because the inhabitants thereof have broken agreements with Jehovah, but chief religious heads of Christendom bletes wars and violence.—Exodus 20:13.

On April 1, 1939, Eugene Pacelli, head of Christendom’s largest religion, telegraphed to General Franco, saying: “Lifting up our heart to the Lord we give sincere thanks with Your Excellency for Spain’s desired Catholic victory. We express our vow that your most beloved country, with peace attained, may undertake with new vigor the ancient Christian traditions which made her great. With affectionate sentiments we send Your Excellency and the whole noble Spanish people our Apostolic blessing.” That “desired Catholic victory” cost the lives of around 1,200,000 men, women, boys and girls, and infants of that unhappy land.

The words of God, at Genesis 9:5, 6, in connection with the establishment of the rainbow covenant, constitute an emphatic statement of the fact that He alone has the right to give life and the right to take it away. If life is taken by man, this taking of life must be done strictly in accord with God’s law, and that law applies to both man and beast. The decree which God announced to Noah was to this effect: “You shall not permit a murderer to live.” That decree is not contrary to God’s law, “You must not murder,” but is in exact harmony therewith. The individual who assumes the right to kill his fellow man is a murderer, and hence a breaker of God's law. God’s decree is that the manslayer shall be punished by death, which sentence must be executed by duly constituted authority and is not murder. Jehovah’s words, "Anyone shedding man’s blood, by man will his own blood be shed, for in God’s image he made man,” could hardly refer back to the creation of Adam in the image and likeness of God. Rather, those words mean that the duly constituted executioner of the wrongdoer acts as the representative of God and in so doing man acts “in the image of God,” that is, such executioner acts on the authority delegated to him by Jehovah in executing the manslayer.

Certainly no one who is in a covenant to do God’s will desires to break his covenant concerning the sanctity of life; but, on the contrary, he is diligent to avoid all such offense. Life is precious and the more one understands Jehovah’s purpose the more endearing it becomes. Life under the Kingdom arrangement by Christ Jesus will be full and rich. Man’s desire will be to live. Death will be looked upon as a dreaded enemy. Appreciating the value of life, none will want to kill.

The bloodguilty of the nation of Israel were visited by God’s vengeance. The gross and flagrant violation of the rainbow covenant by the shedding of human blood must now be avenged, because this is the day of the vengeance of our God and the bloodguilty ones must fall by the hand of the great Executioner, Christ Jesus. The hour of that execution is no later than Armageddon.

Southern Rhodesia

SOUTHERN Rhodesia is in the southern part of Central Africa. Its capital city is Salisbury, a modem city with tall buildings, some shooting upward fourteen stories. There are paved roads and attractive houses—made really beautiful by flowering shrubs and blue jacaranda trees. The modern residential districts are inhabited mainly by Europeans.

The African, on the other hand, still lives a simple, primitive life for the most part. He cannot afford the luxuries of civilization, and with the exception of a few advanced Africans, he usually does not ask for more than a mud-hut existence. Many Africans come into the cities to make some money by working in a factory or as servants and then they return to the reserves, where they are more or less free to live a life as they see fit. Deep back into the reserves, which are areas strictly set aside for the African, can be seen a sudden and extreme contrast of the city life of the European. Here can be seen mud and wattle huts, naked children, bows and arrows. There are leather loinclothes and gourd cooking utensils, women crushing maize into flour by pounding it heavily with a stake and flies crawling around the mouth and eyes of sleeping babies.

The African is content with very little of this life’s goods. He is not easily disturbed. He will resent severe injustices. When learning from the Bible about Jehovah God’s new world, he shows himself to be a man of faith in God and in God’s Word, the Bible. News about God’s kingdom immediately strikes a responsive cord. In Southern Rhodesia there is one minister of Jehovah’s witnesses for every 200 Africans. In 1952 there were over 10,300 such ministers, which represented an increase of 7,270 in less than five years! Now a new high has been reached, 11,794 active Jehovah’s witnesses in a country possessing a population slightly over two million. This means that there is hardly a soul in Southern Rhodesia that has not met or heard of Jehovah’s witnesses.

These African ministers of Jehovah God are happy to sit down with their fellow Africans and speak of the Scriptures and give comfort and hope to their fellow man. If his friend is illiterate, then arrangements are made to teach the willing to read and write and so equip him for a better understanding of the Bible. Unlike most Western lands, the majority of Africans who are baptized are males. Here the male member of the house manifests a keen appreciation for his Creator and he does not leave religion to his wife.

However, the African cannot be said to be as tidy, punctual or as steady a laborer as his Western neighbor. But by following Christian principles in sincerity they make some remarkable changes. They avoid smoking and immoderate drinking, and in general they become desirable workers. Thus, many European employers prefer the African witnesses of Jehovah in their labor forces, because they can be trusted.

Sometimes there are Europeans that are humble enough to listen to the message of Jehovah’s kingdom through the medium of the “lowly” African. Such Europeans receive their first taste of the refreshing waters of truth from their own servants and laborers. Recently an African witness who was a houseboy working for. a European talked about file Bible with a son in the household. He accepted some English magazines and liked them, so he passed them on to another European friend of his. This friend talked about them to his family and when a European missionary called on the husband, he readily subscribed for The Watchtower and asked the missionary to call again to see his wife. With her the missionary placed a copy of the Bible textbook “This Means Everlasting Life”. Calling back a week later the missionary found that the mother, daughter and son had all read the book. A fine home Bible study is now progressing with the family.

One thing that impressed the Africans, the police and the Europeans was the African assembly of Jehovah’s witnesses. Here on the ground assembled were Africans from different tribes, from all parts of the land, 15,000 of them, and yet there were no quarrelings, no fights, no bloodshed or confusion. To many who were not Jehovah’s witnesses this seemed almost incredible, too good to be true, unbelievable. Nevertheless, there it was right before them.

As is well known, the British love their cup of tea, and the Southern Rhodesian housewife is no different. She is always glad to sit down and drink some tea as she listens to .a visiting minister of Jehovah’s witnesses. She is not harassed by too much housework, since African servants do the drudgery in the home. She is not plagued by a stream of door-to-door salesmen nor is she itching to get back to her television screen, because that time consumer has not reached Southern Rhodesia yet. So she has more time to discuss the Bible and later on to study it. With climbing cost of living and other things that come along, the study brings to her a new outlook on life and its problems.

Jehovah’s witnesses in Southern Rhodesia are flourishing. Central Africa is hearing about God’s kingdom. And in the land of the witch doctor and strange customs, many thousands are turning to the pure religion, the worship of the only true and living God, Jehovah.

KNOW? £

• • How the man who never does physical labor is like people who do not use their minds? P. 3, fl4.

• • At what age the growth of our brain power often stops? P. 4, Hl.

• • How this “intellectual age” shows foolishness regarding the Bible? P. 4, flS.

• • What delusion faces the people who say “all is well’’ with the world? P. 5, ff2.

• • What proves Christendom is not Christian? P. 6, fl2.

• • How to take a better course than the one today’s world is following? P. 8, ff3.

• • Why and how the ancients tried to capture sunlight? P. 9, fl4.

• • How a flash of lightning sometimes makes glass? P. 10, ff3,

• • What the outstanding new uses of glass in the home are? P. 12, ff2.

• • in what nation a single vote is for 6oo candidates, including nine presidents? P, 13, Hl. • What extraordinary publicity surrounded a recent Latin-American election? P. 14, |f4-• How much money legalized bingo produces in the state of New Jersey alone? P. 16, ff2, • Where to find the biggest spiders on earth? P. 17,

• • Whether tarantulas really are poisonous? P. 18, 1J2.

• • What effect smoking actually has on longevity? P. 21, ffS.

• • The most important reason why Christian ministers should not smoke? P. 22, ffS.

• • How one can stop smoking? P. 23, fl5.

• • Why human life is sacred? P. 25, fi2.

• • What tremendous increase Jehovah’s witnesses have made in Southern Rhodesia? P. 27, 1J3.

  1 t

  ) f ) ) 1 ) 1 1

  
  

  hatching/ I ■■ s WORLD

  
  
  
  
  

The Formosa Crisis

# In the Cairo Declaration of 1943, Roosevelt, Churchill and Chiang Kai-shek declared: “All territories Japan has stolen from the Chinese, such as . . . Formosa and the Pescadores shall be restored to the Republic of China.” After Japan's surrender the Nationalist government of China took over control of Formosa. When Chiang was forced out of the mainland he moved to Formosa and the Pescadores and the Tachens, a series of small islands just off the China coast. When the Korean war broke out President Truman dispatched the Seventh Fleet to the Formosa Straits to prevent any side from attacking the other. At the signing of the Japanese peace treaty in 1951, Japan renounced all claim to Formosa; but the treaty did not state who would get the island. After the Korean war the Chinese Communists can-centrated their military power along the China coast opposite Formosa. They began shelling some of the Nationalist-held islands. In November the U.S. made a mutual security pact with the Chiang regime, thus committing the U.S. to defend Formosa and the Pescadores. In January Peiping pushed the issue to a crisis stage by conquering the island of Yikiang, eight miles north of the Tachens. President Eisenhower requested Congress to approve a resolution authorizing him to employ the armed forces as he deems necessary “for the specific purpose of securing and protecting Formosa.” The House approved the resolution by a vote of 409 to 3 and the Senate, 85 to 3. Peiping answered by saying: “We are determined to liberate Taiwan [Formosa].”

The Super-Superbomb

Last year the chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission, Admiral Lewis L. Strauss, explained: “The nature of an H-bomb ... is that, in effect, it can be made to be as large as you wish." When Admiral Strauss uttered those words the U.S. had already developed a superhydrogen weapon 600 to 700 times as powerful as the atom bomb that ended the second world war and which bomb President Truman said “had more power than 20,000 tons of TNT.” But even this su per-H-bomb may soon be obsolete, for in January the Atomic Energy Commission indicated that ''additional major developments” were in the offing. Did this mean a supersuperbomb? A clew came in a statement from Vai Peterson, civil defense administrator, who said, as reported in the New York Times (1/30): “In the not ’too distant future we will be building a bomb equal in force to 60,000,000 tons of TNT.” Such a weapon would be about three times as powerful as the super-H-bombs already stockpiled and about 2,000 times aS powerful as the A-bomb that killed 60,000 persons at Hiroshima.

The Abolition of War

<$> On April JI it will be four years since General Douglas MacArthur was relieved of his Far East command. Since then he has been living in comparative seclusion. But on January 26, when MacArthur reached his 75th birthday, he attended a Los Angeles celebration at which 15,000 people witnessed the unveiling of an eight-foot bronze statue oi the general. MacArthur spoke on the futility of war and demanded not just coexistence but an absolute end to war itself. He used terms seldom employed by great military figures. Said the general: “The triumph Of scientific annihilation . . . has destroyed the possibility of war being a medium of practical settlement of international differences. . , . War has become a Frankenstein to destory both sides. . . , The great question is—does this mean that war can now be outlawed from the world? If so, it would mark the greatest advance in civilization since the Sermon on the Mount.” Then MacArthur explained: “The leaders are the laggards. . , , Never in the chancelleries of the world or the halls of the United Nations is the real problem raised. Never do they dare to state the bald truth.” “When will some great figure in power,” the general asked, “have sufficient imagination and moral courage to translate Mils universal wish—which. Is rapidly being a universal necessity —into actuality?” (New York Times, 1/27) He could give no answer. But the Bible shows no man can abolish war. Jehovah God can and will at Armageddon: "He maketh wars to cease unto the end of the earth.”—Psalm 46:9.

Atomic Transportation Begins January 17 marked the date of the Inauguration of atomic transportation, for it was then that the atomic-powered submarine Nautilus made its first trial run. Watched by a crowd of naval officers, reporters and industrialists, the $50,000,000 submarine backed from her dock at Groton, Connecticut, and out into the Thames River. After the tests the Nautilus’ commander reported that she handled with an ease and certainty rare for any ship; and the navy reported the tests were “extremely successful.”

The Costa Rican War

♦ Underlying the war in Costa Rica was rivalry between three men: President Jos£ Fi-gueres of Costa Rica, a liberal democrat; President Anastasio Somoza of Nicaragua, a dictator; and Gen. Rafael Guardia, ex-strong man of Costa Rica, who has been living in Nicaragua. Hostilities began (1/11) when rebel forces, evidently organized by General Guardia, invaded Costa Rica. Aided by four F-51 Mustang planes, which were delivered to Costa Rica by the U.S. at the request of the Organization of American States, the Figueres government was able to repulse the rebel army. One captured rebel said that he was one of 400 men who had been trained for months in Nicaragua: "The Nicaraguan National Guard took care of us in the fort. Young Capt. Teodoro Picado was chief of operations. On Sunday, Jan. 9, National Guard trucks took us from the fort to Pena Blanca on the frontier and we were issued weapons and 100 rounds of ammunition.” Costa Rica held a victory parade in San Jos6, but the exultation was tempered by the fact that most of the rebels escaped, possibly to fight again. Rebel Field Commander Teodoro Picado, Jr., said that he was prepared "to shed blood to the last drop to liberate Costa Rica.” Picado, who is a partner of Nicaragua’s president in a prosperous automobile, machinery and lubricating oil importing concern, said he planned to go to California for a six-month rest “until things cool off."

Attempted Coop in Guatemala

Political unrest has plagued Latin America more than other parts of the world. Often unrest breaks out in epidemics seizing several nations. That is what happened in January. While Costa Rica was fighting a war and Panama was investigating the assassination of its president, Guatemala was engrossed in putting, down a revolt against the regime of President Carlos Cast!lip Armas. President Castillo Armas described the attempted coup: "A group of about 150 conspirators armed with machine guns, rifles and revolvers stormed the military base and air force at Aurora.” The government was waiting. In the brief battle, about 100 of the rebels were captured and at least six were killed. Implicated in the plot were civilians and disgruntled military men. It was announced that Col. Elfego Monzon, formerly a top member of the Armas’ junta, had been arrested and exiled. The president identified Col. Francisco Cosenza as the leader of the plot. But Colonel Cosenza, ambassador to Italy under the ousted regime of President Jacobo Arbenz, took refuge in the El Salvador embassy. The outbreak was the most serious attempt thus far to unseat the anti-Communist Castillo Armas government. Indicating that he was through with soft policies toward internal enemies, President Armas said he was going to “proceed with a strong hand” to rid the country of disturbing influences.

The Spardsh-U.S. Agreement <$> Toward the end of 1954 an advance guard of some 5,000 U.S. military personnel began arriving in Spain to man leased air and naval bases. But Dictator Franco had fears. Behind his fears were Spain’s Catholic bishops, who warned that the Americans might prove “a wedge of Protestant proselytism." They demanded legal "protections” for Catholic se-fioritas. So the U.S. agreed with Spain to limit the marriage freedom of Americans. The agreement forbids Americans to enter into "mixed marriages” (between Catholics and noh-Catholics) with Spanish nationals unless the Catholic Church approves. It also forbids American men and women stationed in Spain from contracting “mixed marriages" even among themselves, unless the Catholic Church should approve. Defending the agreement, James H. Griffiths of the central office for Catholic chaplains in the U.S. armed forces, said that the Americans in Spain are merely “guests” and so must obey the laws of that country. U.S. government spokesmen denied that the agreement was final, but they did point out that Roman Catholic canon law is recognized as civil law in Spain. Protestant objections were spearheaded by Dean James A. Pike of the Cathedral of St. John the Divine, who said: “Even if Spain were not so financially dependent upon us and even if our loyalty to our own principle of religious freedom would impair our relations with Spain, our Christian convictions should cause us to choose principle rather than shortrange advantage."

For Spain: A King-Dictator?

For some time now Generalissimo Franco has been seriously thinking about his successor. Said Franco: "Even though I am in excellent health, my 62 years of age suggest that I should do everything possible to carry into effect the provisions of the law of succession.” In an interview granted to the editor in chief of Arriba, organ of the Falange party, Franco confirmed that he is considering Prince Juan Carlos of Bourbon as a candidate for the Spanish throne. But Franco said he has made no “formal” commitment, lie made it plain that his eventual successor would be required to safeguard the political structure of the present regime. Franco intimated that the role of any future king of Spain would be in effect that of a dictator co-operating with and supported by the political and religious class ruling the country today.

The Surging Seine

<$> France’s warm weather in January melted mountain snows. This, together with almost continuous rains, created a flood peril. Figuring prominently in the crisis was the River Seine. During the peak of the crisis the Seine was a major attraction in Paris. Hundreds of thousands of people lined 23 bridges and miles of embankment to marvel at the fury of their usually peaceable river. Many parents brought their children to see the surging Seine. As the gray-brown floodwaters surged by, the attitude of the flood watchers verged on quiet admiration. Others were more perturbed. They toiled with sandbags to keep the river’s S-shaped trail through the Paris area within man-made walls. In the Louvre art museum officials moved priceless works to the second floor, and firemen pumped water from the basement of the medieval Cathedral of Notre Dame. The high waters drove thousands of river rats into cellars; and Parisians, especially those without cats, prepared for a hunt. The flood fell just short of the 1924 level, the second worst recorded. One of the standard measuring rods for the Seine is the statue of a Zouave—a soldier of a special French African corps —that adorns one of the piers of a bridge. When the statue gets wet feet, barges can no longer pass under the bridge. In the great flood of 1910, when the river rose 24 feet above its normal level, water reached the Zouave’s beard. This time water reached, the statue’s chest.

Death in a Turkish Mine

<$> Turkey’s industrial revolution has been intensifying each year. In the absence of significant domestic oil production, the government’s industrial program has been based on coal. To keep up with demands Turkey’s sprawling Zonguldak coal basin on the Black Sea is working three shifts a day, seven days a week. Tragedy struck this bustling coal basin in January. A violent underground explosion took the lives of at least 38 miners.

DO YOU TRUST TO LU CH?

Do you trust to luck when it comes to knowing what the future holds? Do you take chances when important things are involved? Trusting to luck is never reliable and it is not Wise to take chances when such can be avoided.

To know accurately what the future holds, you are invited to obtain accurate up-to-date information in the reliable Bible study aid magazine published in forty languages, “The Watchtower.” Subscribe for this dependable journal and let it aid you to learn what God himself foretold about the immediate future. A year’s subscription is only $1. Send for yours now and you will also receive free three special booklets.

WATCHTOWER    117 ADAMS ST.    BROOKLYN 1, N.Y.

Please send me the “Watchtower” magazine for one year.

Also, I should like the three free booklets. Enclosed find $1.

Street and Number

Sheeplike persons referred to by Jesus are eager to learn more of the Right Shepherd and his way. They do not tire of reading and studying about him and his kingdom, because they realize that “this means everlasting life,’’ their taking in more and more knowledge of him and his heavenly Father.

As an aid to continual increase in understanding you will find a grand help the 320-page book "This Means Everlasting Life’’ and the modern -language Netv World Translation of the Christian Greelf Scriptures. (Matthew to Revelation) This splendid combination is available on the small contribution of $2. Send for your set today and begin to enjoy the words of life as never before.

WATCHTOWER                 lit ADAMS ST.                SIOOItLYN 1₄ N.Y.

Enclosed find J2. Please send me “This IWeans Everlasting Life” - and the New World Translation of the Christian Greek Scriptures.

Street and Number Name.....................................................................................■.............. or Route and Box ..........................................................................

City............................................................................................  Zone No......... State................      ..........................................

32

AWAKE!